Polygamy
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Rick/Carol/Lori, short. S2, Ep1 "What Lies Ahead." Rick had never imagined that he'd have such a great responsibility before, but he was taking it seriously.


**AN: This is in a series of "shorts" that I'm doing for entertainment value as I rewatch some episodes. Some of them are interpretations/rewrites of scenes that are in each episode. Some are scenes that never happened but could have in "imagination land". They aren't meant to be taken seriously and they aren't meant to be mind-blowing fic. They're just for entertainment value and allowing me to stretch my proverbial writing muscles. If you find any enjoyment in them at all, then I'm glad. If you don't, I apologize for wasting your time. They're "shorts" or "drabbles" or whatever you want to call them so I'm not worrying with how long they are. Some will be shorter, some will be longer.**

 **I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Rick had heard of polygamy even if he'd never ever actually seen it and didn't know anyone, personally, that practiced it. His understanding of it was limited to rough knowledge of the most obvious points. A man was married to more than one woman. He fathered, or at least he had the possibility to father, children with his multiple wives. Those were the basics, as far as Rick knew them.

Through the years, he'd heard other men joke that it seemed like a perfect scenario to them. There couldn't be any better deal than getting as many women to sleep with—and apparently to serve them—as they wanted. Rick, though, maybe a little more pragmatic than some people he knew, had always gone a different direction with his thoughts. Multiple wives meant multiple women to take care of. Multiple women to keep happy and provide for. It meant multiple families to support—even if they were somewhat melded together—and it meant several times the possibility of doing something wrong each day and failing to meet someone's expectations.

It was double or triple the pressure at least.

And, at the moment, Rick felt like he was taking up the practice at the worst possible time ever. He could barely figure out how to keep Lori and Carl alive. With the Walkers attacking them at what seemed like every turn—always there even when they were out of sight—and constantly threatening their lives, every day was a challenge just to survive. Taking on another wife, and another child, voluntarily, would be madness in its purest form. Yet that was exactly what Rick felt like he was doing.

Carol was recently widowed. She couldn't take care of herself any more than Lori could. He didn't know if she was even capable of firing a gun and he couldn't imagine her taking down a Walker in any other way. Sophia certainly couldn't take care of herself. She was only a little older than Carl and seemed to cower away from everything much more than even his son did—and Rick wasn't at all fooled into thinking it had nothing to do with the man that they'd buried back at the rock quarry.

Rick couldn't live with himself if he left Carol and Sophia, alone, to fend for themselves in this world.

So, here he was, the world a waking nightmare, and he was responsible for—even if it was a self-imposed responsibility—two women. Two wives. And now, two children as well. As far as he could tell, this would be a _permanent_ arrangement. He didn't know, exactly, when or how he'd be relieved of his extra charges. He was doing it, too, without all the so-called benefits that his friends might have identified as belonging to the situation.

They were his responsibility, but they weren't really his family. He barely knew them, even if he'd already promised himself that, somehow, he was going to keep them safe.

He would take his responsibility seriously, though. He'd figure out how to protect all of them—all four of the people in his immediate care that were relying on him for everything. He'd find somewhere that they'd _all_ be safe. And then? He supposed that then they would work out whatever logistics there were to work out in this situation.

To entertain them as they drove, Lori reminded Rick about the trip that they'd taken to the Grand Canyon. It was a trip they took when Carl was just a baby. It happened before they had even really worked out much of their own marriage—much of their own lives with a child. They hadn't thought about the logistics of taking a baby on such a long road trip and Carl, without being old enough that they could even begin to blame him for the entire trip falling apart, had taught them that it was best to think things through a little more.

He taught them there was more to consider, when it came to family vacations, than what to pack in the coolers and which highways would let them cover the most ground in the shortest amount of time.

The normalcy of such a thing seemed odd now, though if Rick let his mind drift he could almost imagine they were on the same kind of trip now. All five of them.

So when Carl expressed, from the back seat, his interest in going to the Grand Canyon, Rick didn't hesitate to say that they would go. When the world was back in order and they had control of things—and he had to believe that such a thing would happen to keep moving forward—they would go to the Grand Canyon. And when Sophia showed interest in the trip as well, sitting between Carol and Carl in the bucket seat, Rick had no problem glancing in the rearview mirror and catching sight of the girl and her mother so that Sophia could see his eyes and tell that he wasn't lying. He had no problem calming her fears and concerns the best way the he could.

"We'd never go without you and your mom," Rick said. "That's a promise."

And it was a promise that he meant to keep.


End file.
